Her name is Amber Jensdotter. But her last name hasn’t always been Jensdotter. And in the next few weeks, it will be something completely different.
As the title suggests, the Dairy Art Center’s new exhibit Tran-‘zi-sh(e)n & ‘Chanj focuses on different artistic interpretations of transition and change. For Amber, the theme deals with her identity, more specifically embracing a new name and shedding the old. In her series, called Say Goodbye to Jensdotter, Amber blends the line between art and her personal life by inviting the audience into her journey to find a new name.
The installation features a photo of Amber collecting her DNA to delve into the biological roots of who she is, a suggestion box for new names and an iPad for social media input. It also includes a sampling of her journal.
“What I’m about to do, I’ve been told, is career suicide. After a year of thinking about it, I’ve realized I’ll do it regardless,” she writes. “Changing my name is the most feminist action I can take in understanding my value and grounding my autonomy.”
Amber’s been an artist all her life, and she says she frequently explores identity in her work.
“I would say I’ve struggled with it,” she says. “One of the reasons is growing up in southern Oklahoma, culturally it was a little suppressive. You perform for men in your life, and you adapt to whatever that is, or at least I did. And I was also one of seven kids.”
Nevertheless, she pushed against what was expected of her.
“At age 18, I bought a house and remodeled it,” she says. “It definitely wasn’t something that a young person necessarily does, especially a female. And even when I would go to the hardware store, I was asked, ‘What did he send you after?’ and it’s like, ‘What? No!’”
She was also the first in her family to go to college, for painting and drawing, then on to graduate school for the same.
In October 2014, Amber and her boyfriend, Andrew Williams, changed their names as part of an art performance. Both starting their careers as artists, the mutual last name was an admiration of each other’s work and also a decision to combine their lives. Not a marriage, Amber says, but a celebration of their relationship, nonetheless.
“It was something we were going to do together — cut ties, start over, but start over together,” she says.
They chose Jensdotter together, looking at both their heritages and finding the name in the Scandinavian roots on Williams’ mother’s side.
“We thought it was an interesting name because it was given to females as a temporary name until they got married,” she says.
But even though the choice was made with good intentions, when the time came, Amber was nervous.
“Ironically, moments before the performance it became this other thing. I felt violence in the performance,” she says. “I don’t think I even said anything the whole time, which was really bizarre and weird. I felt awkward, but then I felt like I was supposed to be happy, but then I wasn’t happy. … I felt like the equality and whole purpose of the project, to reclaim something and feel empowered, was lost completely ”
She was hesitant to express her doubts at the time and continued on with the performance. But when the relationship ended a year and a half ago, Amber was uncomfortable keeping Jensdotter.
“It’s hindering me from moving forward,” she says.
As the first name change was done as a public art piece, Amber chose to do so again with her Dairy exhibit. By inviting the audience in, she hopes to have a bigger conversation about the process of changing a name.
While the struggle is hardly unique, it’s not an easy switch. For three years, Amber’s used the name to open a business, speak at art galleries, teach and have shows.
“I felt like everything I was doing or working for was going to get lost,” Amber says. “I think that’s definitely part of the piece.”
We live in a culture where it’s common for a woman to take the man’s last name when she gets married. And when a union fails, Amber says, many women are faced with a double-edged sword.
“Either keep the name used to build career and community and remain associated with the person and past or change the name for emotional and social freedom,” she writes in her journal. “If the second option is chosen the woman is faced with another choice, choose a new name or revert back to the maiden name, which is generally their father’s and has possible dissonance.”
With many of her friends getting engaged, Amber’s noticing the pressure and expectation women face to change who they are.
“[My friends and I] are having a lot of conversations about names right now,” she says. “It’s like, ‘If I don’t take my husband’s name, his family is questioning me and wanting to know if I love him and if I don’t see the marriage as permanent.’ And my friends are just like, ‘I want to keep my name, is that so bad? Why do I have to change that?’”
In doing the show, Amber is able to question the practice. She’s received a lot of feedback from the audience — ranging from people who think she’s brave to some who think she’s crazy. She’s also heard stories about naming children and from those who’ve changed their own names for various reasons, like a woman who’s last name was “Gay” and was sick of the social stigma.
“I just started the project and there’s been so many people who’ve come talk to me,” Amber says. “So how many other women are dealing with this same issue?”
It’s an unconventional choice to pick a name out of thin air, and Amber is not taking the task lightly. She’s doing research in the psychology of certain names, reading studies, looking at her bloodlines and considering the visual aesthetic of various options. She’s staying away from generic names and striving for a name people will remember.
Through the process, she’s had realizations from her own personal life.
“[A name] is a symbol of love and belonging,” she says. “There’s a lot of things tied to a name: me wanting to be comfortable with who I am and not needing my identity to be wrapped up in someone else. … But also just me admitting to myself that sense of wanting to be part of something and wanting to be claimed. I didn’t realize it before.”
Despite not going back to her birth name, Amber says she’s not disparaging her roots, just planting her own.
“I don’t think this is a deprecation to a man or a partner,” she says. “It’s more of a confidence of self worth and knowing who I am, and I can have my own autonomy through it.”
Part of shedding Jensdotter, she says, is to acknowledge the past relationship failure and to start a new chapter, which she hopes will be bring empowerment and freedom.
“You don’t have to live in the past,” she says. “We’re always changing and adapting and growing, and this is being able to choose and to say, ‘This is where I’m going.’”
Amber’s not sure when she’ll choose a new name. She’s hoping to find one before her exhibit closes, but she’s not rushing the process and will settle on whatever feels right.
